One day while we entered hostel, the security of MH was seen pinning a circular in the notice board. The circular signed by Principal stated that alcoholic drinking inside the campus is prohibited with immediate effect. We all laughed reading the joke pasted on the notice board and made ourselves ready for playing ‘keech’ our official card game. After some time Oolan and poocha dashed into the room with a serious red face.
“Have you seen princi’s notice?” Oolan shouted as if the circular demanded all of us to wear underwear inside hostels.
“What is the big deal in it?” asked bosch.
“We should not allow the princi to interfere in our personal matters.” It was poocha who said this.
“We all saw this notice and ignored it right away. Even princi knows that none of us will stop drinking by seeing his circular. He too has graduated from an Engg college and he knows all about young students like us” Jotha tried to console Poocha.
“No we should protest”. Pothan told this as he entered the room.
Protest is a very appealing word. Protest means strike and strike meant a legitimate full day keech in hostel. But serving a strike notice for such a reason – Principal to stop interfering in students personal matters / eating habits could be awful but possible.
“Lets collect money from all hostelites and create a mega vellamadi event tonight in the MH portico” Oolans red face was seen gleaming with joy as he said this.
“So no strike..?” Liju said in a disappointed tone.
“No. We will have this vellamadi as a protest”. Pothan told this and the three walked out and we continued with our keech.
Though the proposal of Oolan was not as appealing as a strike, we never said no to any vellamadi. But why the trio gave undue importance to such a silly matter arouse suspicion in the keech table. Keech became interesting and our mind got fully occupied in the keech.
Oolan, Poocha and Pothan gathered money from all hostelites and with the collected amount, one full bottle and one pint bottle of ISLAND Rum arrived hostel. Both the bottles were displayed in the news paper reading table and the vellamadi was scheduled to start at 8.00pm. We few kept our eye on the pint bottle. Our idea was to move the pint bottle to our room, without getting caught in the eyes of the three organizers and other inmates and drink from our room peacefully. KD was assigned the duty to steal the pint bottle at a convenient time and we all tried to divert others attention from the bottle. When KD approached the table he was surprised to see the pint bottle got disappeared.
Daivame… Kaduvaye pidicha kiduvayo..?
We all searched for the pint bottle in the entire hostel. Though nobody knew our plan of stealing the pint bottle, we felt ashamed that somebody did the trick before us that too in front of our eyes. Moreover the fact that we cannot locate the bottle added more to the grief. While we searched for the pint bottle the full bottle was finished in the portico and we didn’t get even a drop from it. The organizers, Poocha, Pothan and Oolan were seen furious when they learnt that the pint bottle was missing.
The trio organizers offered a treat in hobnob for those who found the missing bottle. Next few days we kept our six senses open to see whether any pint bottle (empty / full) emerged in the hostel. All the drunken people were interrogated to know the source of the spirit. All our efforts were in vein. The bottle remained hidden.
Friday evening, waiting for Venad express at railway station, I saw Poocha, Oolan and Pothan with a 1 Litre pepsi bottle sitting at a remote place, sipping pepsi. Seeing me Poocha offered me the bottle with a wicked smile. I tasted the pepsi. It was mixed with Rum. The mischievous smile in Oolans face told me that the organizers had different intentions that day. However the contents of pint bottle which made us sleepless for few nights was at last recovered in the pepse bottle.
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